


drowning in ellipses

by himitsutsubasa



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Warm Bodies Fusion, M/M, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-17 06:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11845524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/himitsutsubasa/pseuds/himitsutsubasa
Summary: E was once somebody important. With his brightly colored suit and colorful paintings, he must have been quite the character, but that doesn't really matter now that he's dead.





	1. Lunch

His footsteps fell heavily, in a stuttering rhythm. At one point, he might have walked smoothly, even glided, like those stars in the movies, but now, he shambled, the tendons in his legs having rotted away and his body having sustained weathering. 

A small moan echoed in the distance. Time to eat then.

Not changing his pace, he ambled closer to the source of the low, rumbling moans. There, the rapid fire smattering of footsteps, the clack of metal against skulls and the sound of screams cut off too early. There were a few other he recognized. F shuffled around, seemingly unable to get in on the feeding. There were probably enough to make sure everyone got a little bit of the good stuff. E wasn’t overly concerned.

“Fuck.”

He turned. Ah, yes, a human, warm and lively. This one was a little greasy, but he would do.

“Nash!” A girl, rosy faced and brightly dressed, slid to a stop. Oh, he had friends. Good.

“Fuck, stay back! Stay back!” Nash, the greasy one, waved at the girl. She turned to him, then back to E, and bolted. Smart girl, but as E watched F dart after her, he knew she didn’t stand a chance.

Nash didn’t last. His aim wasn’t very good and his strength, weakened by starvation, failed him. Even undead, E had was strong, terribly so. Tearing apart the man’s neck was easy. Done with the messiest part, E gently tore his head off, all the better to preserve the good stuff, and removed the legs. That would be enough for him. The others could take the rest back to base. 

With his winnings under his arm, he shambled down a side alley. There was plenty to enjoy in the coming days.

* * *

Her name was M. Unlike the others, she was almost all bone and she was definitely the queen of the area, the boney in charge. E could faintly recall what she looked like when he first met her, supple skin and beautiful eyes. Those had rotted away since then, leaving her a leathery, peeling set of bones. He had hoped she would be like him, a fleshy. He had even briefly fantasized that they could be together, a fleshy couple, united under the wishes of the boney leaders.

Alas, she had different plans.

He offered her a thigh, tribute for letting him stay in the area. She didn’t particularly like the meat as far as he knew, but she ate it. She probably didn’t recognize him, but then again she did not even look. She stared off into the distance, spinning a little metal top. 

E backed away.

* * *

He would say he was having a dream, except zombies do not dream and they certainly do not speak. E sat up from where he had laid down, something he had kept doing even after he died. He didn’t need sleep anymore, but there was something normal, usual about doing that after a good hunt. 

This had not been as good a hunt as he had hoped. The brains… had been subpar. Bright, but not immensely so and so far all the memories and feelings had been muddled. The images E saw were boring, as in Nash, when he had been alive, was bored. 

E opened the head again. Maybe a little bit more would do the job. He dipped his fingers into the fine tissue and scooped some out. If it didn’t give him anything good, he would call it a loss. Eating brains and legs were not his cup of tea anyway.

He sighed. No, these memories, even if they were stolen were all he had. He had his gallery, which housed his things and this old life, but that didn't tell him much about who he was, or what he did. He had long stretching hallways filled with paintings whose names he could not remember if not for the cards and books that his living self had left behind. E was once somebody important. With his brightly colored suit and colorful paintings, he must have been quite the character, but that doesn't really matter now that he's dead. It's not like he remembers anyway. The living E hadn't been keen on letting anyone know anything about him, even his dead self. These memories, weak tea as they were, were all he had.

Closing his eyes, he laid back again.

* * *

E blinked. He was in a dimly lit room. The walls were metal, reinforced it looked like. He was sitting on a hard stool. Not something he was overly fond of really.

“Men, Ariadne, I want you to meet Saito. He’s the leader of a much larger group of survivors and we’ll be integrating into their community.”

E felt his hand go up. “But why?”

Oh, E could tell the feelings were not Nash’s. No, Nash felt nothing but disgust. E felt something different. Something at all.

The man was dark haired, with high cheekbones. While his clothes were dirty, E liked them. He was dressed well, not as well as E was, but not everyone could be dressed as well as him. The man spoke with a lovely voice. “We are running out of resources. This is the most effective solution, but obviously, you can’t...”

A brisk “tsk” cut him off. The girl from before, the one F chased into the shadows, was alive and well, wearing a different set of brightly colored clothes. She looked annoyed, but fond, if the slight smile playing around her eyes had anything to do with it. 

“Arthur, lay off it.”

Arthur. The man’s name was Arthur.

Arthur nodded and Saito, a tall Asian man, also dressed in a suit, explained what he had to offer the group, and what he wanted in return. E zoned out, watching Arthur. He was beautiful, graceful lines and smooth strokes. He flowed liberally and without end, his legs stretching out as he leaned his chair back. His exposed forearms made E’s mouth water in a way he had not felt about human flesh before.

Arthur turned to face him, face still and pale.“Nash?” 

E turned. Uncanny stillness. The others were watching him, slowly advancing. 

“Hello? What is going on?” E wheezed as a knife plunged into his chest. A blond man, Dom, the brain helpfully supplied, shoved him backward.

* * *

E gasped, sitting up. He didn’t need to breathe anymore, but the cooling feeling of air in his lungs and reflex awoken by his consumption steadied him. He wasn’t sure how long ago the memory or even dream had happened, but it was recent. The lines were still crisp and fresh, unlike Nash’s school days. Arthur. Arthur especially, with his crisp lines and mussed hair.

E laid back in bed, relishing in the warmth he felt. It was strange, but familiar. Arthur stirred that in him.

Arthur was beautiful.


	2. Chapter 2

E hadn’t seen F around. They made a good hunting pair. The fewer involved the less sharing they had to do. 

The others seemed to have cornered a few people. E turned around and wandered off down a side street. A few people meant there could be stragglers somewhere, overlooked when the fleshies went for the group. Stepping into a run down shop, E checked the walls. He could pick out the faint outlines of objects on the shelves. Someone had been in here recently and picked the store clean. He too a step forward.

Thump.

The arrow almost got him in the shoulder. Well, there was definitely someone there.

He grabbed the crossbow and pulled, dragging the man straight into a headbutt. 

The small yelp of pain made him pause. Dragged into the light, the man’s skin glowed and E felt a small thump in his chest.

Arthur.

He dropped the man with a soft thump, backing away. Oh, Arthur. He looked even more beautiful in person. Sure, now he looked a little dazed and stunned, but E could see intelligence and snapping with in those features. He could pick out the little furrows between Arthur’s brows and along his forehead. Oh, but those lines gave him character, made him a little less perfect and a little more real. 

“What? What are you doing?” Arthur scrambled back, against the wall, panting heavily. “Who are you?”

E squatted. Sounds. He could do this. 

“Eeeeeee…”

Arthur froze, eye wide. “E? What is E?”

E pointed at himself. The light went on in those brilliant brown eyes. E felt his face contort into something that a generous man would call a smile. He pointed at Arthur.

“Arthur…”

E tried to wrap his mouth around the name. “Aaahhhrrrrthurrrr. Daaaaahhhhliiinn.”

“Just Arthur.”

“Juuust Aarthur.” E mimicked. He was improving rapidly. Good. He could hear faint moans in the distance though. Not good.

Arthur nodded. “Do you want to eat me?”

Well, in a certain way yes, but E didn’t dwell on it. He shook his head. Arthur nodded warily. “Well, thank you, Mr. E… That’s nice of you.“

Even Arthur could hear the faint moaning now. The other fleshies had gorged themselves and now they were returning to their regularly scheduled programming, which mean that a shopkeeper would be back at any moment. 

E gestured to the far wall with the crossbow. There was a hole in it, large enough for someone to pass through if they were a bit flexible. 

A soft thump made them both freeze. 

Arthur, carefully not breathing to hard, whispered, “You want me to follow you?”

E nodded with a jerk. Shoving the crossbow into Arthur’s hands, he turned and slid through the hole.

* * *

Arthur was strangely quiet.

E checked around the corner again. The trashcans, now filled with the parts that fleshies and bonies couldn't eat, attracted swaths of flies. Their swarming was a better indicator of movement in the area than anything else. 

Clear this time. 

Arthur was probably quiet for a good reason. He was following a fleshy into the unknown and was banking on E being a good fleshy and not one of the ones that wanted to crack open his pretty head and eat his probably spectacular brains. 

They darted through the streets, well as fast as E could dart, which was not very fast. If he was going to be honest with himself, it was more of a light jog. His living self would have been unamused and a little offended at how out of shape E was. 

Arthur, however, did not seem to mind how out of shape E was. He followed tightly behind, crossbow pointed at anything and everything, especially at E. It would have been flattering if he didn’t know it was a crossbow poking him in the back.

* * *

The shop was abandoned, had been for a long time before E opened his eyes and found himself dead. Yet, he had lived there. There was a sprawling apartment above the shop filled to the brim with art, supplies, and works that, even now, E knew were fakes. His fakes, painted with his own hand and his own paint.

Lucky for him, he had finished Nash’s brain and leg. That would have been hard to explain, especially since there wasn’t much in the way of explaining he could do. 

Arthur seemed to fit right in. With his clean lines, but hurried strokes and movements, he was a piece of art, and where better for him to be than in the art gallery of the apocalypse?

E made a face. A generous man would have called it a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who is back and questioning if they will be better than ever? This writer. Okay, so here we go. It's going to be a lot briefer. I may revise chapters completely over time as I work on the rest of it. Here we go.
> 
> Title is from the book.


End file.
